Familiar Words
by Rockport268
Summary: A short vignette of things gone wrong on an adventure. Donald remembers a similar event from many years ago. Can be read independently or with "Alone."


**Author's Note: I did a writing ask meme over on Tumblr while writing this and two people asked me to write "something that's already happened, retold from another character's perspective." I figured I'd finish the POV piece and post it along with this one. You can find it at** **fanfiction . net** / **s/12799175/1/Alone**

"Uncle Donald?" said a small, scared, and very far away voice. "Uncle Donald, please wake up." ** _._**

The words swirled around Donald's fuzzying brain.

"Uncle Donald, _please_ ," the voice pleaded again. " _Please_ wake up."

 _Please wake up._

His thoughts were slip-sliding around, too slick to hold onto, until they caught on a memory he hadn't thought about in a long time.

 _Please wake up._

Donald remembered those words.

* * *

"Please wake up, Uncle Scrooge," said a different voice. His voice.

"Come on, Uncle Scrooge, wake up," Donald said again, shaking his uncle slightly. He didn't want to shake him too hard for fear that he would injure him further.

It had been an early adventure. One of the first without Della. Only a few years since they had stopped being kids, and Grandma Duck had started allowing them to go on Real adventures with Uncle Scrooge, instead of the low-risk, low-stakes ones she only allowed them to go on after being thoroughly briefed.

It figured that the first time Della had stayed behind was also the first time something had _really_ gone wrong.

"Come on, Uncle Scrooge. Wake up. We have to get out of here and I-I don't know which way to go."

Uncle Scrooge groaned, and hope fluttered in Donald's chest.

"That's right, Uncle Scrooge, it's time to wake up," he said. "We've got to catch our plane, and, uh, if we miss it, we'll have to pay for two more tickets."

Uncle Scrooge groaned again, but he still didn't move.

Donald slid his arm under his uncle's shoulders and tried to lift him to his feet. "Come on, Uncle Scrooge," he grunted. "The longer you sleep, the more money you lose!"

Donald could have sworn the sound that came out of his uncle was a growl.

"Come on! You have to help me here! I can't carry you out of the cave by myself!" No, Donald's voice did _not_ just shake, thank you very much.

This time, there was no response.

Donald decided to change tactics.

"WAK! WAK! WAK! WAK!" he said, trying to simulate the sound of Uncle Scrooge's alarm clock. No, wait, that was Donald's alarm clock. Uncle Scrooge's alarm made a ringing noise.

"RING!" Well, that did _not_ sound like an alarm clock at all.

"What's all the racket?" Uncle Scrooge muttered, so quiet Donald could barely hear him.

"It's your alarm clock, Uncle Scrooge!" Donald said as brightly as he could. "It's time to wake up!"

"I am awake," he said.

"Nope. You are only half awake. You need to be fully awake," Donald said. "Remember, time is money!"

"I know time is money!" Uncle Scrooge snapped, surprisingly spiritedly considering that a few moments ago he'd been all but unconscious. "Just give me a minute."

"We don't _have_ a minute," Donald said. "We have to find our way out!"

"Yes, yes, and catch our plane."

"Right. So let's _go_."

Donald pulled, and Uncle Scrooge slowly got to his feet.

"There. Now we just have to figure out which way-"

"Wait a second." Uncle Scrooge's eyes narrowed. "We took the jet."

"Yes. And we have to get back-"

"My _private_ jet."

"So let's-"

"Which means we don't have any tickets."

Donald looked at his uncle, who looked back at him with an anger in his eyes that was usually reserved for when Donald did something like accidentally destroy the equipment he was planning on reselling or thumb his nose at him behind his back.

Yep. He was gonna be fine.

As Donald tried to get his uncle to focus on divulging the right way out, the world began to swirl into shades of grey, his thoughts once again tumbling over themselves until he was lying on the ground.

* * *

 _Click. Click. Click. Click._

What…?

 _Click. Click. Click. Click._

Donald cracked his eyes open.

One of the boys-Dewey-was sitting next to a circle of rocks surrounding an open-Donald blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision-notebook? It looked like he was hitting something together with his hands.

"Dewey?" Donald groaned, trying to pick himself off of the floor.

"Uncle Donald!" Dewey cried, dropping a pair of rocks with a clatter and running over to help his uncle up.

"What's that?" Donald asked, nodding toward the strange setup.

"I was trying to make a signal fire," Dewey said. "So everybody could find us."

Donald's chest clenched, and he had a feeling it didn't have anything to do with his injury. His grip on Dewey tightened as he remembered how they'd gotten into this mess in the first place.

"Are you ok?" he asked, his eyes searching for any signs of injury in his nephew.

"Me? I'm fine," Dewey said. "What about _you_?"

"I'm fine," Donald said, lifting a hand off his nephew's shoulder to ruffle his feathers and nearly losing his balance in the process. He scowled. "Well, I will be fine, once we get out of here." He looked around. "Now, which way did we come from?" he asked.

"That way," Dewey said, pointing to a huge pile of rocks that completely blocked the path. He scrounged around in his backpack and pulled out a compass. "Here."

Donald studied the compass a moment before indicating towards the east with a nod. "We'll go that way," he said, taking a slow step in that direction and trying not to put all of his weight on Dewey. If Donald had his bearings right, it would bring them back toward the beginning of the pass. Eventually.

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